This copious blessing flows through the channel of priesthood. Aaron and his sons are commissioned to pronounce this wonderful benediction. God’s assembly is to be blessed and kept of Him continually; it is ever to bask in the sunlight of His gracious countenance; its peace is to flow as a river; Jehovah’s name is to be called upon it; He is ever there to bless. What a provision! Oh that Israel had entered into it, and lived in the power of it! But they did not. They quickly turned aside, as we shall see. They exchanged the light of God’s countenance for the darkness of Mount Sinai; they abandoned the ground of grace and placed themselves under law. In place of being satisfied with their portion in the God of their fathers, they lusted after other things. (Compare Psalm cv. and cvi.) In place of the order, the purity, and the separation to God with which our book opens, we have disorder, defilement, and giving themselves to idolatry. But, blessed be God, there is a moment approaching in the which the magnificent benediction of Numbers vi. shall have its full application; when Israel’s twelve tribes shall be ranged around that imperishable standard, “Jehovah-shammah” (Ezek. xlviii. 35.); when they shall be purified from all their defilements, and consecrated unto God in the power of true Nazariteship. These things are set forth in the fullest and clearest manner throughout the pages of the prophets. All these inspired witnesses, without so much as one dissentient voice, bear testimony to the glorious future in store for the literal Israel. They all point forward to that time when the heavy clouds which have gathered and still hang upon the nation’s horizon shall be chased away before the bright beams of “the Sun of Righteousness;” when Israel shall enjoy a cloudless day of bliss and glory, beneath the vines and fig-trees of that very land which God gave as an everlasting possession unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.